Friday, October 29, 2010

Yesterday in a nutshell

Yesterday was a fairly exciting day at Casa Parker.

I got two used books in the mail from Amazon, one of which was covered in dog urine (guess who got a bad review?), Meredith came over to pick up a very belated birthday gift from me (a photobook I made of her 30th birthday festivities which took place back in JULY - better late then never, though, right?), Julio and Jorge came home from their dad's house (woohoo!), we got an early xmas gift (a bigger tv for our living room!), and our Dyson arrived (wedding gift from my dad)!

I don't have any photos of the TV, but just for a little background, we have a small house with small rooms. It was built in 1928. We had a bigger TV that was Josh's at one point, but it was overly huge and did not look right in the room, so we sold it. We planned to get a different TV eventually, but in the meantime we were using our bedroom TV which was maybe a 19 incher or so. Even though the living room is small, I had a hard time seeing the TV from the couch (though I admit, I refuse to wear my glasses most of the time when I'm at home). We thought a 32 incher would be the perfect fit, both for our expedit unit that the TV is on

and for the scale of the room. Overly large furniture of any kind just does not work in an older home with small rooms, I have found*. I always try to keep that in mind!

But anyway, that 32 incher is blowing my mind right now. It looks enormous to me! Hopefully in time I will find the look to be less jarring. At least it's in a corner, though! And I can see without squinting. Heck, I can even see people's faces. I am really glad we didn't have the big tv when we watched that Miley Cyrus movie the other night, though ('The Last Song' - I only watched it so I could see all the Tybee Island scenery). Good Lord, I bet the horrible acting would have looked worse on a bigger TV. I might never have recovered (I did get the flu the day after I watched it, and I totally blame it on that horrendous movie)!

Now, about the Dyson. The Bipster and I are both swooning over it. Like every suburban newlywed couple, we fantasized about the Dyson ball vacuum (in yellow, of course), and when my dad offered to gift us one for our wedding, he recommended the cannister vac for hard floors. But - it's not yellow! But - it doesn't have the rolly-ball! No matter - it's perfect, and it easily gets under our furniture. We are in love.

It's truly perfect for our needs. One of my main concerns was if it could get the dog hair off of the couch. Even though we keep a quilt over the couch when the dogs are home, some of Julio's wiry little white hairs manage to work themselves into the weave of the fabric. While those Scotch brand fur removers have worked wonderfully on couches of days past, it just doesn't work with the fabric of our current couch. I even tried the Pledge brand fur removers with no luck. My little Dirt Devil Cone

was also pretty useless. But the Dyson - oh, baby. Not a hair to be found. We may even be able to stop throwing a quilt over the couch because we can clean it so easily now.

*RE: Scale - I am trying to convince the Hubbin that a table like this gem I found on Craigslist (which also comes with two extending leaves... I want it SO badly)

would work so much better for our dining room than what we have now. The pedestal would leave a smaller 'footprint' and also more visual space. Hopefully I can convince him soon and find one just like this - only a little cheaper -with the leaf extenders. We could use it forever and ever. So classic... love.